Image Masking or Clipping Path – Which is more valuable?

Image masking and clipping path are the most common techniques that professional photographers use. Being into the field of graphic designing, both these methods have gained a lot of popularity. Also, in the online industry, the demand is on the rise but ever thought which one is more valuable? So to make it clear, image masking is more valuable as compared to clipping path. It is because the image masking covers complex areas whereas clipping path revolves around less intricate images.

Clipping path

Adobe Photoshop as you all know is a powerhouse of different tools and features to give an appealing look to the images. It may be any type of image for which you need to apply the desired effects or filters and get the results right. One such tool that is quite famous is the pen tool which is used for clipping path. It is a technique to knock out the backgrounds and extracting the object from an image. Depending on the requirements, the cut out image can be placed on a new background.

This technique is really useful to remove unwanted backgrounds of an image where the pen tool promises to deliver accurate results. Although the results are superb, the technique is challenging for the beginners as it involves deleting certain objects from the background. While placing an image on a fresh background, you can lose control so be very careful during the whole process.

To apply clipping path, you need to select pen tool from the tools palette. Before drawing the path, zoom in the work window to get clear view of what you are going to do. Once you are done with the clipping, copy the image and paste on a new backdrop as needed.

Image Masking

Another popular image editing method is image masking. This technique holds special importance in the ecommerce industry. As with this method, the layers are adjusted and attached with the background layer to hide or reveal the areas with white or black color. For intricate images, this tool comes in handy as it beautifully fork out the complex elements off the background.

To create product catalogues or brochures, this method is used because the image can be easily cut out from the background. More than clipping path, image masking is used in fashion world and photography industry because the results are super accurate and awesome. Also, the images look highly stunning with this technique.

Open Photoshop and choose the image you want to apply image masking on. Go to the layers palette and select the layer on which you want to make a mask. Unlock the background layer by double clicking it. Now you need to decide the area you want to show and once you do that, it’s the time to apply masking. Pick a pencil or paint brush and click the mask mode button. It will cover the unselected areas nicely. Next, select the area you need to show by going to layer>add layer mask and choose reveal selection. To hide an area, choose hide selection under add layer mask option. Voila, there you go with the image masking.

Well, no doubt that both the techniques give outstanding results but image masking is really a stunner when it comes to complex images. So for online world where images hold a major importance, image masking holds more value and worth.